Or, say something less polite to get the attention of the anarcho-tyrannical statists. Vats are for boiling oil and such like to pour on the invading barbarian hordes…
*heh*
As opposed to the very open and transparent FairTax plan, a VAT is a stealth tax that hides its burden at various levels of production and delivery of goods and services, just as the current taxation model does. As George Will says in a recent article, strangely in (a semi, half-hearted, limp) defense of a VAT,
Corporations do not pay taxes, they collect them, passing the burden to consumers as a cost of production. And corporate taxation is a feast of rent-seeking — a cornucopia of credits, exemptions and other subsidies conferred by the political class on favored, and grateful, corporations.
While this is a simplistic model, it’s good enough for the purposes of defending axing the 16th Amendment and the whole array of IRS levied taxes it supports, as Will suggests. It is not a good reason to advance a VAT, though, since VATs tend to hide the costs to the economy (not just the end consumer) just as the current tax model does. The FairTax model keeps the tax right up front where the purchaser of whatever (NEW) good or service can see it and be reminded of just what his “feddle gummint” is costing. And that’s a central reason why many politicians *spit* do not like it. The more obscure and hidden from direct view the costs of government are, the easier it is for them to play nearly brain-dead sheeple.
Yes, indeedy. Hiding the cost is what it’s all about.
As it is, ALL the taxes and compliance costs on businesses associated with the current tax schemes perpetrated on our society cause
1. higher costs, in multiple ways: direct passing on of expenses and indirect, through
2, lower wages/fewer jobs and
3. lower returns on investments (hence fewer disposable $$ for investors to spend or reinvest) and
4. trade imbalances because of higher costs and lowered efficiencies causing our goods and services to be less competitive
etc.
A VAT doesn’t in any way, shape, fashion or form necessarily make those costs obvious (and usually obscures them). The FairTax is the ONLY plan I’ve seen that makes taxation open and transparent, and that’s its single greatest strength, IMO.
Nicole said enough for all of us, they don’t want transparency at any level of government, especially when it comes to taxes.